Conservation
We take a multi-faceted approach to conservation that emphasizes participation from local people.

Forest Protection
Copán has a patchwork of old-growth forests. They include pine/oak forest, dry tropical forest, and cloud forest. We help protect these areas by funding land purchases and conservation easements that permanently protect the forest from destruction by loggers, developers, ranchers, and farmers. We understand that farmers need to grow their crops and local food supplies must be maintained, but there is more than enough land already cleared for this purpose in the Copán area. Our goal is to protect and enlarge the wild ecosystems that remain. We are currently researching top-priority forests and assessing the feasibility of biological corridors between them and buffer zones around them.

Ecological Restoration
New Root supports the ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems. We value the careful study of local forests to ensure that we are actually restoring the land to be a functional ecosystem that supports biodiversity. To do so, it is imperative to use native species. Where possible, we encourage the use of natural regeneration, which allows forests to replant themselves. In some cases this is difficult due to an absence of seed dispersing animals or due to the degraded state of the soil. In such cases it is necessary for people to plant seedlings. Depending on the land, these include nitrogen fixing trees such as Gliricidia sepium, fruit trees that attract animals such as Dialium guianense, trees that have medicinal uses such as Acosmium panamense, trees that bind soil to prevent erosion such as Persea americana, and a number of large trees that sequester remarkable amounts of carbon such as Cedrela odorata. In some forests it is possible to find over 100 species on a single hectare. Learn more on our trees page.

Community Forestry
New Root is currently forging relationships with village leaders in the Copán municipal district to help devise sustainable forestry projects that will improve local water supplies and endow communities with valuable forest products. This includes giving them access to technical training and seedlings of native species that may be used for soil improvement, fruit, timber, and/or medicine.

Environmental Education
To enrich people's understandings of their surroundings and encourage sustainable land-use practices, we support various types of environmental education. We are currently working with NGOs in Copán on plans for a botanical garden. We also plan to support workshops for local landowners, farmers and other people interested in land management. We also support projects to create demonstration plots for different types of sustainable land-use, such as agroforestry plantations of cacao, coffee, beans and cardamom and silvopastures. Lastly, we encourage accessibility to our forest protection and ecological restoration projects to inspire and educate locals and foreigners alike.